A Day in Twante
Derek Law

A day trip from Yangon to Twante gives the traveler an opportunity to see villages along the Yangon River and Twante canal, and to visit enormous pottery sheds. The manufacture of clay vessels is the largest cottage industry in the small town of Twante.

We have been there twice, each time leaving Yangon by long distance ferry along the Yangon River and Twante Canal and returning by jeep and cross-river ferry back to the Yangon jetty near the Strand Hotel.

On each occasion we traveled with an EPG representative since there were formalities for foreigners on the ferry which included paperwork in Burmese. We first stopped at the ferry head office early in the morning with passports in hand and obtained special tickets for the ferry. Once on the vessel we moved to the upper deck and quickly obtained deck chairs, which are in short, supply.

Here are notes from Leona’s diaries concerning the ferry ride.

“There were no other foreigners on board for the two-hour ride on the crowded ferry.

A sixth sense told me that I was being watched as I took photographs of men working on the docks before our departure. I turned and made eye contact with a most hauntingly beautiful lady. She looked regal and elegant with a lined face. Her turban was snow white with tiny rose buds sewn across it, forming a pattern of light and dark in the early morning sun. She had eyes that reflected long experience in her world. She smiled then moved slowly away toward the lower deck.

I continued to take photographs on the ferry and of villages along the canal until we docked at Twante. I saw the lady again on the steps to the lower deck.  Our eyes made contact again and I pointed my camera toward her. She smiled again and nodded in the affirmative.

 A unique moment resulted. A gift, a spark, an exchange of understanding between two very different women.  It was a momentary connection between two spirits, smiles that demonstrated to me that goodness and fellowship would always surface between kindred spirits. We never spoke but she remains soulfully in my mind and heart. Yet another wonderful memory from a magical place. Here is the image of that lady.

Later, back in the United States I made a fabric collage based on that image. The two works were presented side by side at an Art Exhibition in Princeton, New Jersey and drew many comments from other artists and visitors who were uniformly interested in my tales of Myanmar."

At the Twante Jetty one can hire trishaws or horse-drawn carts and stop at the impressive Shwesandaw Paya before continuing to the Oh-Bo Pottery Sheds. Here is a major cottage industry, a typical thatched roof shed turning out almost a hundred thousand pots a year. The clay for the pottery is obtained from the nearby riverbank and brought by oxcart to the sheds. All of the pots are hand-made, half wheel thrown, half coil-shaped. Firing is in adobe kilns fueled by local hardwood.

Here are photographs of the clay cart arriving at the sheds and of a pot being hand shaped.

We happened to meet the owner of the sheds and had a long conversation with him concerning his artisan’s work. He confirmed that several tourists visit him each week. Leona commented that these visitors would probably purchase small pottery items if they were available. She spent almost an hour with two of his workers showing them how to imprint leaves on small works intended as bowls or ashtrays. Later, the owner took us to his attractive teak house for tea. It will be interesting on our next visit to Twante to see whether her suggestions have been implemented.